Auction clearance rates climbed above 80% for Sydney and 75% for Melbourne as a record number of properties hit the Melbourne market (see table 1 below).
There were 1,362 properties listed for auction in the Victorian capital city on the weekend with preliminary data showing at least 922 reported auctions.
Spring is the traditional hot season for the property market, but last weekend was the hottest so far and is being dubbed the latest “Super Saturday”.
Table 1: This Saturday, 26 October 2013
Nationwide auction volumes are approaching 3,000, with 2,928 properties put up for bidding in capital cities across the country. That was up from 2,370 the previous week. The national auction clearance rate, according to RP Data, for the main capital cities combined was 72.5% on the weekend, compared to 70.4% the previous week (see graph 1 below).
Graph 1: Weekly clearance rate, combined capital cities
The revised APM data for the previous week show slightly subdued numbers of 75.7% and 71% in Sydney and Melbourne respectively. But there was still a very high number of properties to hit the market, which shows there is still growing demand for these properties (see table 2 below).
Table 2: Saturday, 19 October 2013
In contrast, the same week a year ago saw a still high number of properties coming to the market, but the demand just wasn’t there, with auction clearance rates just over 60% for both Sydney and Melbourne (see table 3 below). There was a large number of properties coming on to the market, particularly in Melbourne, as the market started to show nascent signs of recent, but the high demand of recent weeks just wasn’t there.
Table : Saturday, 27 October 2012
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Also in the Switzer Super Report:
- Peter Switzer: Stocks to rise 9% over the next six months [1]
- James Dunn: AMP – the elephant in the room [2]
- Paul Rickard: Pension phase focus – Protecting your purchasing power [3]
- Rudi Filapek-Vandyck: Buy, Sell, Hold – what the brokers say [4]